What motivation was there for its release?
The day after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, hundreds of American patriots gathered at Harris Riverfront Park to mourn the loss of innocent life. As we joined in prayer and song, there wasn’t a dry eye in sight. We needed healing, and we needed answers.
In the wake of the unprecedented attack, we realized we were at war with Islamic terrorism. Americans united in an uncommon manner behind a common goal: Expeditiously track down the individuals responsible before they could mount yet another attack on the U.S. For all we knew this was a “ticking time bomb” scenario with more waves of attacks to come.
But our country was shaken at its very foundation. This new enemy didn’t fear death, they celebrated it. This wasn’t a time for indecision or vacillation of principles. It was a time for action. We were at war, and the enemy had successfully gotten off the first deadly round.
In the following months, CIA operatives would begin strategically compiling information about Al Qaeda’s networks led by Osama bin Laden. Through enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs), information critical to defeating radical Islam was gathered. As a result, Al Qaeda would eventually be crippled and Osama bin Laden killed.
But when Barack Obama became president he wasted no time decrying the EITs incorporated by the Bush administration. In January 2009, the president issued an executive order prohibiting any unlawful interrogation by the CIA, saying it didn’t represent America’s “values.”
And if indeed, the CIA engaged in unlawful interrogation following 9/11, one would think that after six years it would be in America’s best interest to simply “move on.” But certain ravenous politicians, sensing Americans have settled into a “surety of safeness,” have dangerously begun to chum the troubled waters of the past.
Last week, a Democrat-loaded Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released a report disclosing the full details of the Bush administration’s EITs. Predictably, the country has since been deluged with political donnybrook questioning the motivation behind the timing of the release.
Upon the declassification of the committee’s report, President Obama told Americans “that upholding the values we profess doesn’t make us weaker, it makes us stronger…” The president went on to remind us there is “strength” in confessing our imperfections to the world.
I never cease to be amazed at what this president thinks makes America strong.
While Obama believes this “purging” of the soul will make other nations “admire” the U.S. for our forthrightness, he just served up a terrific recruiting tool for modern day Islamic terrorism. He simply doesn’t understand that rogue nations perceive his naivet as weakness and are emboldened to act.
This belated assertion of wrongdoing also stains the service of those commissioned by Republicans and Democrats alike to identify and destroy the enemy before they could strike again.
Releasing this report fans the flames of Islamic hatred toward the U.S. And the fact that it puts American lives in jeopardy was reason enough not to have disclosed the information.
Free State Patriot 